Huntingtin: A Protein with a Peculiar Solvent Accessible Surface

• Main Authors: Giulia Babbi, Castrense Savojardo, Pier Luigi Martelli, Rita Casadio
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-03-01
• Series: International Journal of Molecular Sciences
• Subjects: huntingtin; protein surface annotation; protein–protein interaction; protein–membrane interactions; calcium ion–binding site
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/6/2878
• ISSN: 1661-6596; 1422-0067

Taking advantage of the last cryogenic electron microscopy structure of human huntingtin, we explored with computational methods its physicochemical properties, focusing on the solvent accessible surface of the protein and highlighting a quite interesting mix of hydrophobic and hydrophilic patterns, with the prevalence of the latter ones. We then evaluated the probability of exposed residues to be in contact with other proteins, discovering that they tend to cluster in specific regions of the protein. We then found that the remaining portions of the protein surface can contain calcium-binding sites that we propose here as putative mediators for the protein to interact with membranes. Our findings are justified in relation to the present knowledge of huntingtin functional annotation.